This disclosure relates to an electronic engine control system for a vehicle power plant, such as an aircraft gas turbine engine.
Numerous distributed control architectures have been envisioned and proposed in the past for aircraft. However, reliability concerns and the need to protect electronics from harsh environments led to modern federated architecture as the industry standard. Typically, large military and commercial engines are controlled by an Electronic Engine Controller (EEC) or a Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC), housed in a centralized location. Commercial requirements have evolved toward a singular electronic control mounted in the relatively benign environment of the fan case. Fan case mounting necessitates long wiring harnesses that can approach weights of five pounds per foot.
By default, the centralized EEC included all the connections for the engine and airframe. In this federated architecture, the EEC receives input from various sensors and issues commands to the appropriate actuators or subsystems, such as the fuel system. Electronic feedback is provided back to the EEC to confirm proper operation. The EEC performs inner-loop control of an actuator or subsystem, for example. As a result, modern EEC's are very large, heavy and application-specific making redesigns very costly.